FRENCH INDO-CHINA

highly prejudicial. A compromise was reached in 1930, which made
these regulations strictly applicable only for big business, which must
be officially registered. As was inevitable, neither side was satisfied.

The government had long and vainly yearned for the real names of
a Chinese businesses directors and those of the men who were nomi-
nally running it. This step was designed to eliminate the Chinese trick
of using names lite "Eternal Happiness" or "Springtime of Youth"
to prevent prosecuting the real directors of a bankrupt enterprise, who
could melt away under such joyous nomenclature. Chinese merchants
henceforth were to report their business balance every six months,
and if they planned to leave the colony they must announce their depar-
ture a month in advance. These measures may have been unduly severe,
as the Chinese complained, but the real reform should have been a
in attitude on the part of the French merchants. They, like
other colonials, preferred looking to the administration for their salva-
tion, which lay* rather, in their own hands.

CHINA

The commercial treaties which the colonial government has made with
its Far Eastern neighbours run 'Counter to the artificial ties by which

France has lado-China to her economy. Indo-Chinese relations

have been complicated by three issues: border incidents,

China, and the problem of the Chinese resident in the
colony* An 0f 1886, with its supplementary clauses attached

in and 1895, for years regulated commerce with China, and

in Southern China. Even the protectionist rigours
of the were mitigated by an exceptions list that contained

essential to the Indo-Chinese. Such wares

in no Preach production, and the tariff on them had point-

the of for the masses. The Washington Con-

«rf 1922, in its recognition of China's tariff autonomy, forced

fcte of a treaty with Indo-China, A first snag was

in return for permitting Chinese con-

to be in die oohnqr, and for a diminished transit tax

cm for the 'damage done to

and in amd a cessation of political agita-

tion la in ratifying treaty permitted China

iterilimtelMxaiirioicy—both of which measures
tte little faith was put by the